Church Calendar
The Church Calendar consists of a series of cycles by which feasts are celebrated in the Orthodox Church. There are currently three calendars in use in the Church, the Julian Calendar, Revised Julian Calendar, and Gregorian Calendar. The following list of dates links only to fixed feasts of the Orthodox Church. The Church's year begins with the Indiction on September 1.
Usage
- The Julian Calendar churches are: Jerusalem, Russia, Serbia, Georgia, Poland, Sinai, Ukraine, and Japan.
- The Revised Julian Calendar churches are: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Czech Lands and Slovakia, and the OCA.
- The Gregorian Calendar churches are: Finland and Estonia.
A number of the above churches also have some parishes and dioceses which are on a different calendar than their respective primates, most especially the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the diaspora, which has many Julian Calendar parishes.
In terms of population, most Orthodox Christians follow the Julian Calendar (roughly 144 million to 41 million) but in terms of numbers of autocephalous and autonomous church bodies, the majority use one of the New Calendars (12 to 8).
Calendar
See also
Guidance on style
External Links
Calendar use
- Frequently Asked Questions about Calendars by Claus Tondering (everything you ever wanted to know)
- Calendar and Easter Topics
- The Calendar Issue in the Orthodox Church (.pdf), by John Parsells
